The Floating Island Read online

  Yvernès—first violin—thirty-two years old, above the medium height, slight in build, fair, curly hair, smooth face, large black eyes, long hands, made to stretch to any extent over his Guarnerius, of elegant bearing, wearing a flowing cloak of some dark colour, and a high silk hat, somewhat of an attitudinizer perhaps, the most careless of the four, the least troubled about matters of interest, in all respects the artiste, an enthusiastic admirer of beautiful things, a virtuoso of great talent and great promise.

  Frascolin—second violin—thirty years old, short, with a tendency to stoutness—which he by no means liked— brown in hair and brown in beard, big in the head, black eyes, and a long nose, marked at the side with red by the pinch of his gold eyeglasses—which he could not do without—a good fellow, good natured in every way, acting as the banker of the quartette, preaching economy, and never listened to, not at all envious of the success of his comrade, having no ambition of being promoted as solo violin, excellent musician nevertheless—and then wearing but a simple dust coat over his travelling suit.

  Pinchinat—alto, commonly addressed as “his highness”—twenty-seven years of age, the youngest of the troupe, the most frolicsome too, one of those incorrigibles who are boys all their life, a fine head, intelligent eyes, always wideawake, hair approaching to red, pointed moustache, teeth white and sharp, tongue never still, never tired of puns and nonsense, and alert for repartee, invariably good-humoured, for ever making light of the discomforts that fell to his comrades, and therefore continually being reprimanded and taken up short by the chief of the Quartette Party.

  For it had a chief, the violoncellist, Sebastien Zorn, chief by his talent, chief by his age, for he was fifty, short, rotund, hair abundant, and curled on the temples, moustache bristling, and losing itself in the whiskers which ended in points, complexion brick red, eyes gleaming through the glasses of his spectacles, which he doubled by means of an eyeglass when he read music, hands plump, the right accustomed to the undulatory movements of the bow, ornamented with large rings on the second and little finger.

  This slight sketch is probably sufficient description for the man and the artiste, but one cannot with impunity for forty years hold a sonorous box between one’s knees. It affects one’s whole life, and the character is influenced. Most violoncellists are talkative and quick tempered, impetuous and domineering, and such was Sebastien Zorn, to whom Yvernès, Frascolin, and Pinchinat had willingly abandoned the management of their musical tour. They let him say what he liked, and do what he liked, for they understood him. Accustomed to his imperious manners, they laughed when he “outran the measure”—which is regrettable in the case of an executant, as was remarked by the irrepressible Pinchinat. The composition of the programmes, the direction of the routes, the correspondence with the managers, devolved on him, and permitted his aggressive temperament to manifest itself under a thousand circumstances. Where he did not interfere was with regard to the receipts and the management of the purse, which formed the particular duty of the second violin and chief accountant, the exact and careful Frascolin.

  The quartette are now introduced as if they were before you on a platform. We know the types, if not very original, at least very distinct, of which it was composed. As the reader allows the incidents of this strange history to unroll themselves he will see to what adventures were destined these four Parisians, who, after receiving so many bravos throughout the States of the American Confederation, were to be transported.

  But let us not anticipate, “not hurry the movement,” as “his highness” would exclaim, and let us have patience.

  The four Parisians then, at eight o’clock this evening, were on a deserted road in Lower California, near the ruins of their overturned carriage. The chief of the quartette was violently angry. Why not? Yvernès pretended that he was descended from Ajax and Achilles, those two illustrious angry heroes of antiquity.

  Let it not be forgotten that though Zorn might be bilious, Yvernès phlegmatic, Frascolin quiet, and Pinchinat of superabundant joviality, all were excellent comrades, and felt for each other like brothers. They were united by a bond which no dispute or self-love could break, by a community of taste originating from the same source. Their hearts, like well-made instruments, always kept in tune.

  While Zorn fretted and fumed, and patted the case of his violoncello to make sure that it was safe and sound, Frascolin went up to the driver.

  “Well, my friend,” he said; “what are we to do now, if you please?”

  “What you can do when you have neither a carriage nor a horse, and that is to wait.”

  “Wait for what comes,” said Pinchinat. “And if nothing comes?”

  “We must look for it,” said Frascolin, whose practical mind never failed him. “Where?” roared Zorn, in a great state of agitation. “Where it is,” replied the driver.

  “Is that the way you ought to answer?” said the ‘cellist, in a voice that gradually mounted towards the high notes. “What! A clumsy fellow who pitches us out, smashes his carriage, lames his horses, and then contents himself with saying, “Get out of it as you like!”

  Carried away by his natural loquacity, Zorn began to launch forth into an interminable series of objurgations, all of them of no use, when Frascolin interrupted him, — “Allow me, my old Zorn.”

  And then, addressing himself to the driver, he asked, —

  “Where are we, my friend?”

  “Five miles from Freschal.”

  “A railway station?”

  “No, a village near the coast.”

  “Where can we find a carriage?”

  “A carriage, nowhere—perhaps a cart.”

  “A bullock cart, as in Merovingian times!” exclaimed Pinchinat.

  “What does it matter?” said Frascolin.

  “Eh!” resumed Zorn. “Ask him if there is a hotel in this hole of a Freschal. I have had enough for tonight,”

  “My friend,” asked Frascolin, “is there any hotel in Freschal?”

  “Yes, the one where we were to change horses.”

  “And to get there we have only to keep on the main road?”

  “Straight on.”

  “Let us be off!” said the ‘cellist.

  “But,” said Pinchinat, “this poor fellow. It will be cruel to leave him here in distress. Look here, my friend, could you not come along if we were to help you?”

  “Impossible!” replied the driver. “Besides, I prefer to remain here with my carriage. When daylight comes I shall see how to get out of this.”

  “When we get to Freschal,” said Frascolin, “we can send you help.”

  “Yes, the hotel-keeper knows me, and will not let me remain here in this state.”

  “Shall we go?” asked the ‘cellist, picking up the case of his instrument.

  “In a moment,” replied Pinchinat. “Just lend a hand to lift the driver to the side of the road.”

  Pinchinat and Frascolin lifted him up, and placed him against the roots of a large tree, the lower branches of which formed a cradle of verdure as they fell.

  “Shall we go?” roared Zorn for the third time, having hoisted his case on to his back by means of a double strap arranged for the purpose.

  “We have done now,” said Frascolin, who then addressed the man, saying, —

  “It is understood that the hotel-keeper at Freschal will send you help. Till then you want nothing, is that so?”

  “Yes,” said the driver, “unless you happen to have a drink with you.”

  Pinchinat’s flask happened to be full, and “his highness” willingly made the sacrifice.

  “With that, my good man,” said he, “you will never catch cold to-night—inside you.”

  A final objurgation from the ‘cellist decided his companions to make a start. Fortunately their luggage was in the train, instead of with them in the carriage. It might be delayed in getting to San Diego, but they would not have the trouble of carrying it to Freschal. They had enough to do to carry the violin
cases, and perhaps rather too much with the ‘cello case. True, an instrumentalist worthy of the name never separates from his instrument any more than a soldier does from his arms, or a snail from its shell.

  CHAPTER II.

  To journey at night along an unknown road, amid an almost deserted country, where there are usually more malefactors than travellers, was enough to make them rather anxious. Such was the fate of the quartette. Frenchmen are brave, of course, and these were as brave as any. But between bravery and temerity there is a limit which no healthy mind will overstep. After all, if the railway had not run into a flooded plain, if the carriage had not upset five miles from Freschal, our instrumentalists would not have had to venture by night along this suspicious road. It was to be hoped that no harm would happen to them.

  It was about eight o’clock when Sebastien Zorn and his companions started towards the coast, as directed by the driver. As they had only their leather violin cases, light and handy, the violinists had little reason to grumble. Neither the wise Frascolin, nor the cheery Pinchinat, nor the idealist Yvernès, had a word of complaint. But the ‘cellist with his case—a cupboard as it were on his back! Knowing his character, we can understand that he found every opportunity of working himself into a rage. Hence groans and grunts exhaling under the onomatopœic forms of “ahs,” and “ohs,” and “oufs.”

  The darkness was already profound. Thick clouds chased each other across the sky, drifting apart into narrow rifts, from which occasionally peeped a fitful moon, almost in its first quarter. Somehow, why we know not, unless it were that he was peevish and irritable, the pale Phoebe did not please Sebastien Zorn. He pointed his finger at her, exclaiming, —

  “What are you doing there with your stupid face? I know nothing more imbecile than that slice of unripe melon up there!”

  “It would be better if the moon were to look us in the face,” said Frascolin.

  “And for what reason?” asked Pinchinat.

  “Because we could see it more clearly.”

  “O chaste Diana!” declaimed Yvernès. “O messenger of the peaceful night! O pale satellite of the earth! O adored idol of the adorable Endymion!—”

  “Have you finished your ballad?” asked the ‘cellist. “When the first violins take to flourishing on the fourth string—”

  “Take longer strides,” said Frascolin, “or we shall have to sleep under the stars.”

  “If there are any,” observed Pinchinat. “And lose our concert at San Diego.”

  “A fine idea, my word!” exclaimed Zorn, shaking his box, which gave forth a plaintive sound.

  “But this idea, my old friend, was yours,” said Pinchinat.

  “Mine?”

  “Undoubtedly! That we did not remain at San Francisco, when we had quite a collection of Californian ears to charm.”

  “Once more,” asked the ‘cellist, “why did we start?”

  “Because you wished it!”

  “Well, I must admit that it was a deplorable inspiration, and if—”

  “Ah, my friends!” said Yvernès, pointing towards a point in the sky where a narrow moon-ray fell on the whitish edges of a cloud.

  “What is the matter, Yvernès?”

  “Look at that cloud turning into the shape of a dragon, its wings open, a peacock’s tail eyed as with the hundred eyes of Argus.”

  Perhaps Sebastien Zorn did not possess that power of hundredfold vision which distinguished the guardian of the son of Machus, for he did not notice a deep rut into which he trod. Consequently he fell on his face, with his box on his back, and looked like some huge beetle creeping over the ground.

  Violent rage of the instrumentalist—and he had cause to be angry—and then objurgations on account of the first violin’s admiration of the aerial monster.

  “It is the fault of Yvernès!” said Sebastien Zorn. “If I had not been looking at that confounded dragon—”

  “It is no longer a dragon, it is an amphora! with the gift of imagination but feebly developed you can see it in the hands of Hebe who is pouring out the nectar—”

  “Take care that there is not too much water in that nectar,” exclaimed Pinchinat, “and that your charming goddess of youth does not give us an overdose of it.”

  Here was another trouble in store; rain was apparently coming. Prudence required that they should make haste so as to get into shelter at Freschal.

  They picked up the ‘cellist, as angry as he could be. They put him on his legs, growling all the time. Frascolin good-naturedly offered to carry the case, but this Zorn refused. Separate himself from his instrument! one of Gand and Bernardel’s, almost a part of himself? But he had to give in, and this precious half passed on to the back of the useful Frascolin, who entrusted his light violin case to Zorn.

  The route was resumed. They walked at a good pace for two miles. No incident worth mentioning; the night getting blacker and blacker with every promise of rain. A few drops fell, very large ones, a proof that they came from clouds high in the air and stormy. But Hebe’s amphora did not overflow, and our four travellers hoped to reach Freschal perfectly dry.

  Careful precautions were constantly necessary against falls on the dark road, deeply cut into by ravines, turning suddenly, bordered by high crags, skirting gloomy precipices with the roar of the torrents beneath.

  Yvernès thought the position was poetical; Frascolin that it was alarming. There was the fear of certain meetings which make the safety of travellers on the roads of Lower California rather problematical. The only weapons possessed by the quartette were the bows of the violins and the ‘cello, and these would appear to be insufficient in a country where Colt’s revolvers were invented. If Sebastien Zorn and his comrades had been Americans, they would have been furnished with one of those engines of warfare, kept in a special pocket of the trousers. Even for a trip from San Francisco to San Diego a real Yankee would never have started without carrying a six-shot viaticum. But Frenchmen had not thought it necessary. We may add that they had not thought about it, and perhaps would repent it. Pinchinat marched at the head, peering right and left as he walked. Practical joker as he was, “his highness” could not help playing off a few pleasantries on his comrades. Pulling up short, for instance, every now and then, and muttering in a voice tremulous with fear, —

  “Ah! There! What is that I see before me? Be ready to fire.”

  But when the road plunged through a thick forest, amid mammoth trees, sequoias a hundred and fifty feet high, vegetable giants of these Californian regions, his joking humour disappeared. Ten men might hide behind one of these enormous trunks. A bright flash, followed by a report, the swift whistling of a bullet, might they not see it, might they not hear it? In such places so suitable for a nocturnal attack, an ambush was plainly suggested. If luckily they did not meet with bandits, it was because these estimable people had totally disappeared from Western America, or were then engaged in financial operations on the borders of the old and new continent. What an end for the great great grand-children of the Karl Moors and Jean Sbogars. To whom could these reflections come but to Yvernès? Decidedly, he thought, the play is not worthy of the stage.

  Suddenly Pinchinat stopped still. Frascolin, who was behind him, also stopped. Zorn and Yvernès were up with them immediately.

  “What is it?” asked the second violin.

  “I thought I saw something,” said the alto.

  And this was no joke on his part. Really there was a form moving amid the trees.

  “Human or animal?” asked Frascolin.

  “I do not know.”

  Which was the more formidable no one would have ventured to say. They crowded together, without retreating, without uttering a word.

  Through a rift in the clouds the rays of the moon lighted the dome of this gloomy forest, and flittered to the ground through the branches of the sequoias. For a hundred yards or so the surroundings were visible.

  Pinchinat had not been the dupe of an illusion. Too large for a man, the ma
ss could only be a big quadruped. What quadruped? A wild beast? A wild beast certainly. But what wild beast?

  “A plantigrade,” said Yvernès.

  “Oh! bother the animal!” muttered Zorn, in a low impatient tone, “and by animal, I mean you, Yvernès. Why cannot you talk like other people? What do you mean by a plantigrade?”

  “An animal that walks on its plants!” explained Pinchinat.

  “A bear!” replied Frascolin.

  It was a bear, and a large bear too. Lions, tigers, leopards are not met with in these forests of Lower California. Bears are, however, constantly found there, and encounters with them are generally disagreeable.

  No surprise will be felt at the Parisians, with one accord, resolving to get out of the way of this plantigrade. Besides, was he not at home? And so the group closed up and retreated backwards, facing the bear, but moving slowly and deliberately, without seeming to be running away.

  The bear followed at a slow pace, shaking his fore paws like the arms of a semaphore, and balancing himself on his haunches. Gradually he approached, and his demonstrations became hostile—gruff growls and a snapping of the jaws, which were rather alarming.

  “Suppose we run each on his own account?” proposed “his highness.”

  “Do nothing of the sort,” replied Frascolin. “One of us would be sure to be caught, and who would pay for the others?”

  The imprudence was not committed; it was evident that its consequences might be disastrous.

  The quartette thus arrived huddled together on the edge of the clearing where the darkness was not so great. The bear had approached within a dozen yards. Did the spot appear to him convenient for an attack? Probably, for his growls redoubled, and he hastened his advance.